TALLAHASSEE,
FLORIDA--Governor Jeb Bush has dropped his attempt to change a law that would
have required surgically implanted feeding tubes to remain in some patients
unless if they had requested their removal in writing, or had authorized
someone else to make that decision for them.

The Orlando Sentinel reported last week that Bush could not find a
legislative sponsor for the measure, more than a year after the high-profile
death of Terri Schiavo. Mrs. Schiavo died of dehydration on March 31, 2005,
thirteen days after the tube providing her food and water was removed through a
court order sought by her husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo.

Terri had not left a living will or advanced directive when she
collapsed and her brain was without oxygen at age 26 and she was left in what
some doctors considered a "persistent vegetative state". Soon after the
incident, a feeding tube was installed through the wall of her stomach after
doctors worried she might choke on food and water.

Seven years later, Mr. Schiavo petitioned the court to have the feeding
tube withdrawn, insisting that his wife had told him, during casual
conversations prior to her collapse, that she would not want to live on life
support or by mechanical means.

Bush intervened in the case in August 2003, but only after his office
was flooded with tens of thousands of messages from disability rights advocates
and right-to-life groups urging him to get involved on behalf of Terri's
parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who wanted her to be kept alive and to receive
swallowing therapies.

Eventually, the case wound its way to through Florida courts to the U.S.
Supreme Court, which all backed Mr. Schiavo.

The Orlando Sentinel noted that the measure the governor had drafted
would have allowed patients in terminal or "end stage" conditions, or who are
considered to be in a persistent vegetative state, to have a feeding tube
withdrawn only if they specified that preference in a living will, or if they
authorized a surrogate to make that decision for them.

The measure would have drawn a distinction between the implanting of
feeding tubes, which are used by thousands of people with disabilities and
medical conditions, and life-prolonging medical interventions, such as
respirators.